Pro-Abortion "Ardent, Practicing Catholic Grandmother" Just Doing What Jesus Would Do [UPDATED]

Pelosi Says She Has a Duty to Pursue Policies in Keeping With The Values of Jesus, 'The Word Made Flesh'

(CNSNews.com) --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says she believes she must pursue public policies "in keeping with the values" of Jesus Christ, "The Word made Flesh."

Pelosi, who is a Catholic and who favors legalized abortion, voted against the ban on partial-birth abortion that was enacted into law in 2003.

At a May 6 Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill, the speaker said: “They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word.”

“And that Word," Pelosi said, "is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.

“Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”

John 1:14 states, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth."

[...]

After Pope Benedict XVI met privately with Speaker Pelosi in February 2009, the Vatican issued a statement saying: "His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in co-operation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

8 Comments:

So the pope lectured her on protecting human lives at all levels, yet sometimes the life of the mother is exactly what is at stake. If the Catholic hierarchy had its way, women would not be able to protect their life when their pregnancy is threatening their life.

Let's be honest about the issue: abortion for the Catholic Church is not about protecting human life at all levels because if it were there would be a recognition that sometimes abortions are necessary in order to save the life of the mother. Even in cases where the mother is going to die which means the fetus will consequently die, the Church consistently opposes abortion as can be seen by the actions of Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix in his role in the excommunication of sister Margaret Mary for claiming that abortion was right in that exact circumstance.

A truly pro-life position does not claim that a mother has no choice but to die when their unborn fetus is threatening her life. But a mother's right to save her own life must just be me being a "shameless, blasphemous, murderous" man.

And I have no tolerance for those who distort - either out of ignorance or mendacity - what the Church actually teaches in this area. Go read up on "double effect" and then come back and discuss this without the overwrought pronunciations of just how much more "truly pro-life" than the Church you and the abortion queen Pelosi are.

I know what the Catholic Church teaches on abortion. CCC 2271: "Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law." Presumably that means abortion is 'gravely contrary to the moral law when used as a means to save a mother's life. I don't know how it gets any clearer than that. And we also see how Church doctrine clearly plays itself out in practice when a Catholic nun is excommunicated for claiming that a dying mother could legitimately have an abortion if it was to save her life.

But if I am missing something, please let me know because I have never met a conservative Catholic who has claimed that abortion should be legal in any context, whether it be to save the life of the mother or not.

My position on abortion is basically that it is an issue that is up to the individual woman because only she can know, with the advice of her doctors, what the effect of carrying a child to term is going to be. I am not saying that abortion should be a decision that is taken lightly or that it isn't the destruction of a human life. But the difference is that the fetus, by its very nature, survives off the resources of the mother and if we respect the right of self-autonomy she has the right to terminate the pregnancy if it is determined that the pregnancy is going to ruin her health or kill her.

Maybe I am misunderstanding Church teaching and the Church does allow for double effect exceptions allowing for an abortion, but I have never heard such an argument. Indeed, at least one of the Bishops of the Catholic Church does not think that abortion is OK to save the mother's life, and he was of the opinion that anyone participating in such an abortion has performed an offense that is worthy of automatic excommunication. Was his interpretation wrong?

Look, I realize abortion is a messy issue and that it is sad that a human life dies as a result and I have a feeling that there are many abortions performed out of pure selfishness because the mother simply does not want to bear the burden of raising a child. But how exactly does the law go about distinguishing between abortions that take place out of selfishness or abortions that take place because the mother's life is in danger? There would be no effective way to police something like that, and since we live in an imperfect world we must allow women to have access to abortions because their lives are often on the line.

What else are people supposed to do except make the best decision they can in a given circumstance? That is an issue that I never see the pro-life movement address, and frankly it is a poor reflection on their part.

"Maybe I am misunderstanding Church teaching and the Church does allow for double effect exceptions allowing for an abortion, but I have never heard such an argument."

You ARE misunderstanding both Church teaching and the principle of double effect. The Church holds that abortion is NEVER morally permissible. It CANNOT be moral to directly and intentionally kill one innocent person in order to save the life of another.

What is morally permissible is to take an action to save the life of one person that has, as an incidental effect, but NOT as the object of the action, the foreseeable death of another person.

So, in the case of the expectant mother who has cancer, chemo treatments to save her life are morally permissible EVEN IF there is a likelihood that the unborn child will not survive said treatments. Similarly, the situation of an ectopic pregnancy in a fallopian tube has traditionally been treated under the principle of double effect. The object is the removal of the fallopian tube, which is treated as diseased or defective, not the removal of the embryo within the tube, incidentally leading to its death.

But what if the mother's body simply isn't strong enough to support the life of the fetus. It isn't like an ectopic pregnancy where it is an issue of "let's make the intention of the fallopian tubes and call the death of the fetus an unfortunate 'double effect.'" I am talking about similar to the one where a mother's life is in danger because she has a heart condition that is aggravated by her pregnancy and the removal of the fetus from the body (or the abortion) is the intended action.

So if I am understanding your correctly, I have not shown a misunderstanding of Church teaching because you have said it yourself that an abortion is never morally permissible. The situations you described are not really abortions, although the death of the fetus might be an unwanted consequence. I am talking about an instance where it is the presence of the fetus that causes the threat to the woman's health.

I am talking about stories like this: http://www.azfamily.com/news/Nun-excommunicated-after-abortion-that-saved-womans-life-93995789.html

The issue here is not that she needs her fallopian tubes removed or needs chemotherapy. The issue is that the pregnancy caused a "rare heart condition" which put the mother's life in jeopardy. Since you have admitted that abortion is never morally permissible, then you have admitted that this lady had to risk death. It wasn't an issue of "double effect," which I don't misunderstand because it simply does not apply, rather it is an issue of the mother saving her life through the intentional abortion of the fetus (which incidentally would not have survived either way).

One thing you are mistaken about is what constitutes a "truly pro-life position". It is NEVER pro-life to directly and intentionally kill one person so that another or both may live. That is pure consequentialism - i.e. good ends justifying evil means.

You are also mistaken as to whether abortion is the ONLY option in such a case. There are some indications from what I have read that other means were available to alleviate the stress on the mother's heart. If such means led to the incidental death of the child, that is not an abortion, and thus double effect comes into play. But what if such efforts merely inconvenienced the mother by requiring bedrest throughout the term of the pregnancy?

But let's assume the hospital's assessment was correct that this was one of those extremely rare cases in which the only way to save the mother's life was in directly terminating the pregnancy. Knowing that directly and intentionally killing an innocent person is NEVER a moral option for Catholics, even in the really, really tough and tragic cases, do you honestly expect Bishop Olmsted to take any other position? (By the way, he DID NOT excommunicate Sister Margaret, but merely confirmed that under Catholic teaching she had automatically excommunicated herself, latae sententiae, by directly participating in an abortion - another aspect of the story you got wrong.)

Catholic moral theology is not outcome based, it is intention based. Actions are either intrinsically moral or immoral, and one cannot commit an immoral act such as directly and intentionally taking a human life so that good may result. A "truly pro-life position" does not contemplate taking the immoral action of committing murder in order that another may live. Sometimes this leads to less-than-ideal and even tragic outcomes - and I wouldn't want to be tasked with making the call in that situation, but the teaching is straightforward and clear: one cannot call oneself either Catholic or "truly pro-life" if one thinks the morally right thing to do is directly and intentionally kill another human being to avoid some other loss of life. Dropping atomic bombs on civilian population centers, for example, in order to avoid a possibly much higher death toll should an invasion of mainland Japan have taken place is not justifiable under Catholic moral theology. Even though more lives might have been saved, no one can argue with a straight face that dropping A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "truly pro-life" actions.

Valuing and protecting human life at all levels means NOT playing God and deciding, by taking immoral actions, who is more worthy to live and who should die. Valuing and protecting human life at all levels means those who are "truly pro-life" will not set the life of the mother against the life of the child (or the lives of those in a couple of cities against those who might be killed in an invasion), even in such tragic circumstances.

But, again, this Phoenix case that you bring up is an extremely rare circumstance. And, given that most efforts to outlaw abortion would make exceptions for the case in which the life of the mother is TRULY threatened by the pregnancy (not one of those bogus instances regarding the so-called "health" of the mother, which can be interpreted to mean "peace of mind"), I'm not sure why you're even making the case here that would allow the tiny fraction of exceptions to set the rule for all abortions. The fact is, San Fran Nan supports abortion on demand for whatever reason and at whatever stage of pregnancy. From the perspective of actual legal efforts to outlaw abortion, your defense of Pelosi here by playing on the extremely rare case where the life of the mother is at actual risk is a canard.

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About Me

A convert to the Catholic Church who became Catholic because of a belief in and devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. * A graduate of Baylor University and the University of Virginia School of Law. * Former Mayor of the Town of Columbia, Virginia. * Married with four children: two boys and two girls. * Primary interests include the Catholic Church, family, Early American History, and law/politics * Primary purpose of this blog is fostering enlightened discussion about the roles played by the institutions of religion, family, and state in our daily lives. * Under the protection of St. Thomas More, martyr, and patron of lawyers, judges, civil servants, politicians, statesmen, and large families (not to mention troubled marriages).

Pray that, for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice, I may be able in argument, accurate in analysis, keen in study, correct in conclusion, loyal to clients, honest with all, courteous to adversaries, trustworthy with confidences, courageous in court. Sit with me at my desk and listen with me to my clients' tales. Read with me in my library and stand always beside me so that today I shall not, to win a point, lose my soul.

Pray that my family may find in me what yours found in you: friendship and courage, cheerfulness and charity, diligence in duties, counsel in adversity, patience in pain -- their good servant, and God's first. AMEN.

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Perfect in your honesty and love of truth, grant that lawyers and judges may imitate you and achieve true justice for all people. AMEN.

"Give me the Grace Good Lord, to set the world at naught; to set my mind fast upon Thee and not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly company but utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of the business thereof."